kristen silverberg: thank you. your comments on american support for human rights and democracy overseas i think are very important. you, of course, have been a leader on the anti-corruption and human rights side. what seems to me as one of the challenges is domestic support here at home. i was disappointed by how little those issues played in the current elections. i'm wondering if you have thoughts about what we can do to actually secure the bipartisan consensus that america needs to be at the forefront of those issues? ben cardin: well first of all, i'm not surprised those issues don't play out well on election day. election day is going to be about basically economic issues. we know that. that which controls most of the undecided voters. they are going to be concerned with how the next president and the next congressman or senator, what they are going to do to help their life. they are going to be interested in jobs. they are going to be interested in higher education. they are going to be interested in health

kristen silverberg: thank you. your comments on american support for human rights and democracy overseas i think are very important. you, of course, have been a leader on the anti-corruption and human rights side. what seems to me as one of the challenges is domestic support here at home. i was disappointed by how little those issues played in the current elections. i'm wondering if you have thoughts about what we can do to actually secure the bipartisan consensus that america needs to be at the forefront of those issues? ben cardin: well first of all, i'm not surprised those issues don't play out well on election day. election day is going to be about basically economic issues. we know that. that which controls most of the undecided voters. they are going to be concerned with how the next president and the next congressman or senator, what they are going to do to help their life. they are going to be interested in jobs. they are going to be interested in higher education. they are going to be interested in health

kristen silverberg: last one. in the redshirt. >> you talked about democratic institutions and building them up. can we discuss your views on turkey? sen. cardin: turkey is going to a difficult time. from my point of view, they are going through difficult period. they have had a rough history. for many years they were not treated fairly by europe. mainly because they are a muslim majority country. they have had their share of issues. turkey is concerned about the kurdish extremists. to the detriment of themselves. they focus much on that that it causes a challenge in their commitment to govern with human rights and it prevents turkey from being a significant player and dealing with the broader regional security issues. so we look at turkey as our ally. we look at the prime ministers policies -- we look at pentagon dogan's issues. we continue to work with them. we want to continue our partnership with turkey. we look at it as a country that it is a large independent country that they will do what they think is righ

he will be moderated by ambassador kristen silverberg, who is managing director for this system of financekristen is well-known and well-respected among all of us in washington. in particular for her service during a number of senior capacities during the bush administration, united states ambassador to the european union, assistant secretary of state for international organizations, also in the white house and in baghdad. it is great to have a speaker and a moderator who share what for us is an organizational interest in the promotion of human rights and democracy and strong american leadership in the world. i ask you to please join me in welcoming senator cardin. and the ambassador, thank you very much. [applause] kristen silverberg: senator, it is always an honor to hear from you. you know, i have dozens of topics i would love to talk about. i thought i would just hop right into it and hopefully save about 10 minutes at the end for audience "q" and "a". when we first scheduled this. i was confident we would be